“I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise as they go by” Douglas Adams (Author of the HITCHHIKERS GUIIDE TO THE GALAXY)

Actually, being the sort of guy who worries about deadlines, and gets really upset when publishers and editors don’t reply in a reasonable time – like, you know, 20 minutes, there are a few things that are less true for me. YMMV.

That is not to say I do not suffer as much as the next author from procrastination. Have done some of the horrendous jobs rather than face the manuscript again. Part of that is, well, I love my books. Every one is finished, and I put it out there, thinking: “Surely this must be the one the entire world loves even half as much as I do?”

So far, they have let me down. And you reach a point where you really don’t want to go through it again. I still can’t bring myself to say ‘Ok another pot-boiler’ and keep churning. I have to keep trying. But a novel is for me a long-haul job which I eventually get finished. And then, inevitably, love. I don’t have deadlines, because selling on proposal just got me very irritated (see the 20 minutes thing). The trouble is sort of need them, because it keeps me from deciding to clean the sewage pipes instead just sitting down to another 1000 words. “The job needed doing – many of the jobs on building the house do, but so does writing.

So: in a way, having a possible deadline for a short in a collection I was invited to contribute to, and wanted to, badly (mostly, I don’t)… worked well. They asked for about 10 K, I provided that, it took me less than 10 days, and… I LOVE the story. LOVE the characters, love the concept… and of course, the editor hasn’t got back to me. It’s been 20 minutes dammit! (well, a day or two). I know, I know. It’s Christmas/New Year, there are probably dozens of others sitting in the inbox. Hell, for all I know the project may have fallen through. It happens. It also happens that the editor doesn’t like the story, even if I love it. (If they don’t use it, I’ll file the serial numbers off it and make it into a book. I liked it that much).

The waiting is of course the bad part, but the good thing about it is that the deadline pushed me to get it finished. Pushed me to remember how much I do love my books. So I decided I better subject myself to a deadline to finish the current one. I’m 70K in. I was aiming for 50K ;-/.

Do deadlines work for you? Or against you?